


Chivalrous, Bold and Slick

by verulams (finnlogan)



Category: David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Genre: Breathplay, Kissing, M/M, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27908329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnlogan/pseuds/verulams
Summary: Steerforth is, after all this time, very adamantly interested in having David’s hands on his neck. After all, he’s rather used to getting what he wants.***“Do I make you so flustered? So flustered as to be truthful?”It’s strange. It is David’s hands buried in Steerforth’s hair, not vice versa. David by rights should not be the flustered one: at any given moment, it was not David’s head leant back. It was not David’s neck extended. It was most certainly not David’s exposed Adam’s apple tucked against sinew and muscle and breath.
Relationships: David Copperfield/James Steerforth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Chivalrous, Bold and Slick

“Are you…?” Steerforth makes an odd noise, nestled in the back of his throat like a cuckoo‘s egg. David loosely recognises it later as a vague attempt to clear his throat. 

With his fingers wrapped around Steerforth’s hair, David can only respond with a faint noise of his own. They sit in his room, with both relaxed onto their knees, facing each other on the bed. They are fully clothed, but somehow - and David isn’t quite sure how this is true - his trousers feel a little thinner, and his waistcoat thinner still. It is quite abruptly as if he was not clothed at all. 

“Hm.” Steerforth mumbles. “Yes. Are you  _ quite _ sure, Daisy?”

David feels his lips purse, just a touch. Enough, perhaps, to indicate either that he was sure, or really that he wasn’t sure at all. 

It wasn’t about being sure, in any case. At this point, after reading quite so many late-night life-stories to him, it was rather about being  _ unsure.  _ It was hard to be anything but sure with Steerforth. The idea, after all  _ this _ time, was to be uncertain. 

David mumbles something that he knows is difficult to interpret.

“I am never sure with you. Except for when I am, I- I… certainly I think that when I am sure I am… sure.”

It is David’s turn to clear his throat. A short, but oddly comfortable, silence falls.

“I am certainly sure of you when I am sure.” He is reminded of words swimming across the page and the way his brain stubbornly insisted it simply could not read when he was asked. He doesn’t need to stamp on the feeling as he sometimes did; the feeling flows away from him. He stares at the man in front of him and grabs at the feelings that stick. 

“I simply enjoy your company,” He says. It is the plainest thing they have said to each other in quite some time. 

He reflects immediately that it is  _ the _ plainest thing they have said to each other. He also reflects that Steerforth does not return the comment. 

Steerforth grins and something in the back of his eyes waxes a little melancholy. 

“Do I make you so flustered? So flustered as to be truthful?”

It’s strange. It is David’s hands buried in  _ Steerforth’s _ hair, not vice versa. David by rights should not be the flustered one: at any given moment, it was not  _ David’s  _ head leant back. It was not David’s neck extended. It was most certainly not David’s exposed Adam’s apple tucked against sinew and muscle and breath. 

Steerforth leans in further and seemingly presses the air tight together between them, and it sifts through his blood to think that they’re doing this, in David’s space, in David’s bed, in David’s-

But it was Steerforth. Steerforth was never ashamed to take what he was given. After all, he was given it. That was  _ always _ reason enough. 

“Pull,” Steerforth pops the plosive on his lips. 

It heaves through him. 

“Steerforth-“

“James for now, Daisy. James.” And Steerforth grabs at David’s other hand, gently turning it over. He hadn’t noticed, but his palm had been grabbing onto the flesh of his thigh. Steerforth-

Not Steerforth. James. James pulls his palm away from his leg, turning it over as if to inspect his palm for lines that might be able to tell his life. If a palm  _ could _ tell a life, he wonders if it would be able to tell it in fewer words than he could. 

Steerforth’s eyes wane a little warmer, the deep sadness to them wiping away. 

James tilts his head back. “Pull, Daisy.”

David pulls. His fingers wrap around coiled and well cared for hair, and James pulls a sharp breath from heavy air. The long fingers grasped around David’s wrist tighten, wrapping around him as if they were some great boa constrictor that he had read about as a child. 

“Is this…?” David can’t help the question slipping from him. He doesn’t know how it ends. 

James licks his lips and smiles back. “Hm?” 

Something cracks. Something about control. Something about the secrets of all of the awful men in his life. 

Like that, he thinks, but purified somehow. Cleansed. 

Wiped away. In this moment, there is no such thing as all of those old awful bastards who had sat in his brain and crowed their laughs. There is only-

James’ long fingers pinch at the skin above his veins. “Alright, Daisy?”

Something cracks. Something about control. 

“David,” he murmurs. 

James quirks his mouth up at the corners. “Oh?”

They make a moment of eye contact, and it is such a terrible thing. It swells like a symphony, like an opera that he could barely hear for its rough crescendo, for a noise so loud it was not a noise at all. A noise so loud it was a series of vibrations. 

A noise-

A noise so loud it was a vibration. 

Their eye contact bellows. Such a grand and awe inspiring thing, James makes a swift and soft sound that dies within his mouth, and his eyes dart to David’s palm and David’s eyes and back again. 

Slowly. 

It happens so slowly, as if James were a spooked animal and David a growling predator. As if that had been true all his life, as if David Copperfield had been nothing  _ but _ a predator. 

It happens slower still when David’s broad palm nears James' pale neck. 

It is first the shock of warmth to his cold fingers. Then it is the way his breath fills his mouth, the way his shallow breathing shifts his neck ever so slightly. It is the way that his heartbeat, amid the crashing flow of ever-so-gentle sensations, surely must be close to bursting. 

“Hm, well,” David murmurs. James’ teeth slam shut. 

He hadn’t noticed that James’ jaw had been slack above his fingers. He hadn’t noticed his soft eyes or his flushed cheeks either. 

The light of the candle is near enough gone. 

“Daisy?” It is breathy and slow and flowing. 

“It’s David, James.”

And he blinks, swallows against the flesh of David’s palm, and mutters: “Yes.”

It is not as simple as doing. It is never as simple as  _ doing.  _

“Call me David, James. Call me David and I’ll…” he heaves a breath. “I’ll tighten my fingers.”

James exhales through his nose. “Tighten them? That’s hardly fun talk. I want you to  _ push. _ ”

“Well then, James. I suppose that’s it, then.” David drops his hand, the one that had been gripping still at the back of James’ head. 

On the whole, David imagines James isn’t pleased by the noise he makes at the loss of contact. An exhaled, stolen breath. A kind of high pitched keening noise. The way his eyes stare back at David’s. 

Still, when James’ hand jumps out to catch onto his and he laces their fingers together, he imagines that James could find worse things to despair about. 

James pulls David’s other hand up to his neck. 

“Push.”

“Insolent.” David says before he can stop himself. It slips. It’s fond, always, and humorous in intent. 

With both palms under his chin, David is aware of James’ tongue moving in his mouth. There is nothing chaste about the thought of him running his tongue over his teeth. 

“David.” He breathes. “Push.”

David smiles and pushes, the deep drum beat of James’ heart thrumming through his fingertips

His breath comes out in short staccato noises, and his fingers grip at David’s arms. A pulse of time that could be anything. Could be anything at all, a second, a moment, a year. It could be a century or a millennia, or any time other than here. 

Rome could be fighting the Celts, or King Henry might be marrying his wives, or the mud through which prehistoric people carried Stonehenge could be setting in the summer ground. 

The moment is without time, but it is certainly not without space. He digs in his fingertips, thumb on the throb of his heart and fingers probing into muscle. There is nothing  _ but _ space, the idea of James’ muscle beneath skin and breath beneath that is intoxicating. The relation of space to space, being to being, James and David and the relation between skin and skin is-

David breathes. 

James does not. 

“David,” he murmurs, and so he releases just a little pressure, just a little space. “David, you’re stronger than you look,” he smirks. The colour is still high on his cheeks and his jaw is slack. 

David laughs under his breath. 

“No, I mean it, David. Deeply.”

And then, as the candle on the counter goes out, James grabs at David’s shoulders, wrenching himself forward and then-

As the candle snuffs itself, no fuel to power it, they kiss. 

It is not as David would expect. James does not try to fight him. James does not relax into it either. There is only communication, exploration. There is only this moment. Suddenly, time is simply now and space narrows into the point at which their bodies meet. James traces fingers up and down David’s arms, and David-

David grabs hold of his hair and pulls, tilting his head upward and letting their tongues move together as if they were dancing.

It is not hasty. It is not slow. It is sincere. Perhaps that is what causes him to draw back. Perhaps it is the sincerity, and not the grasp at the back of his head. 

What matters is that the candle has gone out. It matters that they kissed in darkness, though David cannot put his finger on why. 

Regardless, James pulls back and places a hand against David’s face, the fabric of their skin meeting. It sends sparks down the shuddering connections in his brain. 

And as quickly as David had wrapped his hands around James’ hair in the first place, as quickly as they had sat opposite each other on the bed, and as quickly as James’ had asked him for this-

It is over. Steerforth straightens up. His spine cracks and he brings himself up on his feet. 

That was it. That was all. No more, no less. But sometimes-

Sometimes when they look at each other, it is all he wants in the world to dig his fingers in. 

It is all he wants to pry his hands from their poses, to place them onto the back of his head and kiss so deeply that the heavens might open up and sing for them. 

But that was it. That was all. No more, no less. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at finnlogan or verulamfic on tumblr!


End file.
